An Oklahoma family of nine has been stranded in remote Alaska after the Norwegian Cruise Lines ship they were travelling in left them behind – and then charged the desperate family $13,000 AUD ($9,000 USD) in customs fees.
The Gault family was traveling with six young children and a 78-year-old grandmother on July 12 when they got off the Norwegian Encore in Kashikan, a small town on a chain of southern Alaskan islands, so they could watch a lumberjack show together.
But on the way back, the local tour operator ferrying passengers to and from the ship failed to properly check who had tickets and who didn’t – he just took a headcount – and told the Golts there was no room and they should wait for another shuttle.
“We see chaos filling the buses. We go to get on the bus and someone says, ‘The bus is full, you have to wait for the next bus,’” Joshua Goult told Channel 2 News.
But the bus never came, and after frantically calling the port authorities to arrange transportation, they finally arrived at the docks to watch the Norwegian Encore sail away – taking with it their passports, medicines and clothes.
“There were six children on board, minor children, a 78-year-old mother-in-law, all on medication,” Mr. Goulet said. “We all had to stop taking our medication abruptly over the last few days because it was all on the cruise ship.”
From there, the chaos deepened.
The family, who had already spent about $44,500 on the trip, received an on-the-spot fine of about $13,000 from the cruise company — $1,400 per passenger — for missing the boat.
The charges stemmed from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Passenger Vessel Services Act, which they violated by not visiting a foreign port before returning to the United States, as planned for their trip.
But they were unable to catch the ship at its next port of call in Canada because almost all of their passports had sailed away.
With no choice but to find their way home, the Gault family had to arrange new accommodation within hours, book flights home, and feed their hungry mouths – with costs piling up the longer it took them to return.
“All the flights for nine people, all the food for nine people, all the hotel stays,” Goulet told Channel 2 News, counting the accommodations they had to arrange — and pay for — during the trip.
After days of travel — which included stops in multiple cities, canceled flights, and more than one night of airport stays — the family finally arrived home to Tulsa, exhausted and tired, having caught debilitating cases of Covid along the way.
“Yes, we are exhausted now. We are unhealthy and defeated,” he said.
The family is working with Norwegian to rectify the situation, but after the ordeal they went through, they feel the cruise company has done too much to make things right.
“We’re still looking into it, and we haven’t forgotten about you,” Kaelin Goult said the Norwegian kept saying to them as they drove home.
“I said, ‘No, we feel like you pretty much forgot about us when you left us at the port and told us to go and figure it out,’” Ms. Goulet added.
Norwegian Shipping Lines said the post The process of returning the approximately $13,000 the Jolts paid to the family has begun, and they will be refunded all of their travel expenses once receipts are received.
The cruise company also said it tried to contact the Golts after they missed their bus due to “an error by a local tour operator,” and when they were unable to reach them, it worked with the local port authority to help the family arrange overnight accommodations before they could catch a flight to Seattle the next day.
“In addition, these guests will receive a prorated refund for the two days of the cruise they missed,” a Norwegian Cruise Line representative said.
“As a gesture of goodwill, the company will also provide each of the nine guests with a future cruise credit in the form of a 20 percent discount off their cruise fare that can be used on their next voyage,” Norweigan added.
The incident was the latest in a series of incidents that have put Norwegian Cruise Line under the spotlight for leaving passengers behind.
Last April, eight passengers were left behind in Africa after an independent trip they had taken was delayed in reaching the boat — and they had to piece together a route across the continent to catch the boat.
Most cruise lines are known to have a policy that passengers who fail to return to the ship within a specified time limit will be left behind so the ship can maintain its schedule – but exceptions are generally made if the delay is the fault of the cruise company or the operator it provides or recommends.
Although the passengers were on an independent trip in April when they missed their trip, their ages and disabilities raised questions about the strictness of the cruise company’s policy. Norwegian eventually agreed to refund some of the money the passengers had paid to catch the boat.
This article originally appeared on New York Post Reproduced with permission.
